Loss
by Sparkling Slayer
Summary: Not very good at summaries, so please read and see what you think.... The title should give a clue as to the content..! Please read and review, thanks!


Anne McCaffrey owns Pern; I just borrow it now and then!

Please read and review but don't flame - constructiveness is nice!

The glows have burned down, leaving my weyr in shadows and darkness, but I don't care. I can feel a thick wadding of bandages down my side, pulling at the skin, and it hurts like sharding hell, but it doesn't matter. The wounds aren't threadscore; they're burns from phosphine emissions. The numbweed must have worn off. I'm sure someone will probably come soon, with their silence and their sympathy but I have no strength to think about how _they_ might feel.

I remember how it began…. ..

-

Searched, for five great queen eggs sat on the Hatching Ground. My mother's father's father's father had been a dargonrider; and I always knew when they were in the sky. On the few occasions one landed for groundsweeps after Threadfall, I could hear them – talk to them too. Sometimes their riders were surprised and made comments which meant I should be in the Weyr, but it came to nothing. Until the day I heard the wingbeats in my mind, and the great bronze dragon came on Search.

And now, here…….. standing on the sand, feeling the heat burn quickly through thin-soled boots; the scratchy material of the white robe rubbing against my skin. Feeling sick with apprehension and yet excited too, flitterbys the size of runnerbeasts flapping in my stomach.

We stand in a loose semi-circle and in front of us, each cushioned carefully on a mound of sand, sit the five huge eggs. Their mottled skins shine golden under the light of the glows in the Hatching Ground. Beyond the glows is a pale blur of faces, all those people watching – I know my parents are somewhere in the seats, but the queen eggs fill my thoughts. The Ground is ringed with sparkling pinpoints of lights as many-faceted dragon eyes look downards; the hum of the waiting beasts thunders and rings in my skull.

Above the eggs, swaying and flickering her forked tongue, is the immense golden shape of the queen dragon, Felith, eyes whirling as she stares balefully at us. Every now and then her wedge-shaped head swings, curving round on its long sinuous neck, towards the mound of eggs to our right, as she glances at the boys and young men who are waiting round the sixty-three carefully positioned eggs. They're not as large as the queen eggs but each is beautiful, skins mottled with different shapes and colours

I remember the girl next to me clutching hard at my arm, pointing shakily with her other hand, voice strained as she says, "Look - look – the eggs – it's starting!" I remember she gave a kind of shriek, like a small animal in a trap, and swayed almost as if she would faint. I remember holding her for a moment before the eggs claimed our attention; but I don't remember her name.

I watch with her as the eggs begin to rock; one here, and one there, going into ever more violent arcs as their occupants fight to be free, to come into the world. Felith warbles encouragement to them, her voice undulating in a strange croon and her mate adds his own voice to the mix, ringing above the expectant hum of the others around the cavern.

I hear my own gasp echoed as the first to hatch – a bronze – struggles free of the shell fragments, a strange, spindly, awkward creature. His wet wings drag in the sand and he cries piteously for help as he overbalances, staggering, reaching out with a taloned fore-foot to grab something, anything, to help him. The boy he grabs for is knocked off balance and falls; the dragonet walks over his legs, still crying, and blood begins to pour, reddening the golden sand as those sharp talons gouge the robe and the limbs beneath.

I watch as a young man – I think his name was Toryn – rushes forward to help the fallen boy. The others are frozen into position, horrified, as further hatchlings break through their shells and begin to stagger forwards. I watch as Toryn helps the fallen boy to his feet; and already a clutch-mate of the bronze has found him, and as he meets the blue's eyes, the pain fades from his face. I watch as the bronze hatchling turns and his eyes meet Toryn's. Their eyes meet and joy, the joy of Impression, suffuses Toryn's face. "His name is Leeth!"

Things happen fast now, and soon almost all the eggs have disgorged their occupants and the sound of joyful cries rings throughout the Ground. The dragonets and their new partners start to leave the Hatching Ground as we watch, guided by the Weyrling Master. Some of the girls with me are smiling at the joy on the new riders' faces, some are shaking, terrified; at least one has fainted into a small crumpled heap on the hot sand. The first boy who fell was not the only one to be injured.

There are very few eggs now left to hatch and a bugle above us draws our attention back to Felith. One of the queen eggs begins to rock, and striations are appearing down the shell. The dragon's humming takes on a deeper intensity as they wait for their future queens to hatch.

The girl beside me shrieks again as the first egg shatters, the queen almost leaping from the shards. Felith croons, and swings her head down to gently nose at her daughter; then the queen staggers forwards, towards the far end of our line, her eyes meeting and disregarding girl after girl. I watch enviously as she suddenly stops at a dark-haired candidate and watch the incredulous smile break on Serrany's face as the hatchling croons her satisfaction. "Her name is Parith!"

The other eggs are wobbling now, all four at once, rocking wildly on their sandy beds. Two queens break free, almost together, but each one heads for a different part of the line; I listen as the names ring out, as I recognise the voices of Torana and Willia.

"Her name is Velenth!"

"Her name is Narath!"

Then the last but one egg breaks; and the squawking hatchling loses her balance and sprawls nose first into the soft sand. Protesting, she looks up, her eyes meeting mine, staying a moment – and passing over. I hear the gasp of joy down the line as her eyes meet someone who will be her bond-mate for life and listen to the voice of Eline.

"Her name is Areth!"

I watch as the four new queens and their riders begin to leave the Ground, then swallow my disappointment that Areth passed me over, remembering that there is one last egg to hatch. As I turn, I realise that the ground is littered with shards, and that no hatchling stands among them - and then I see the stumbling shape of the little queen as she makes her way down the line of girls left on the sands. Abover her, Felith croons encouragement to this small daughter. And then; then I hear the voice. Her voice, for the first time. Shy, unfamiliar, yet always known.

_Have you been waiting for me?_

Astonished, I feel my smile grow and grow as the queen reaches me and butts at my legs and our eyes meet – I am lost in the rainbow regard of her love, her adoration, her beauty and know that we will be together and that nothing can part us.

_I am Khedeth!_

- -

My mind should be empty but I can still hear faint voices, intruding on my silence; but they're not wanted, they shouldn't be there, Faranth damn them. I close my eyes, but the one voice I want is not there and I will never hear it again. My beautiful, beautiful golden Khedeth is gone and I will never listen to her sparkling, chiming voice in my mind again.

_I am here and we will help you. We miss Khedeth too._

The words are quiet but firm; I know the voice is Felith, our senior queen. She sounds just like the Weyrwoman – capable, matter-of-fact. Did Khedeth sound like me? I don't know. I used to think it was a gift to hear the dragons' voices in my mind, to be able (rider and dragon willing) to talk to them, but now I see it's a curse. Why can't they leave me alone?

I should have gone _between_ with her but some sharding numbwit pulled me from her back before she leapt skywards, managing a wingbeat from the ground, and now they won't let me go. I remember screaming her name, fighting the hands that held me and then – when she blinked out of sight and I knew she was gone – there was nothing.

My beautiful Khedeth. Gone, because some numbwit bronze weyrling panicked and swerved to avoid a clump of thread that just caught his wingtip, panicked and swerved, but still flamed. He should never have been near the queen's wing as we swooped and dived and used our flame throwers on the clumps the higher wings misseed. I can still feel my Khedeth's pain, screaming, howling in my mind as the flames crisped her muzzle, her eye, her wing, her soft hide. The flames went through my wherhide riding gear and severed the riding straps; she managed to hold on long enough to land us and then, crippled, she went _between._

There's a noise outside. I can hear the soft brush of wingbeats as a dragon hovers by the weyr ledge and now there are footsteps, coming down the tunnel, past Khedeth's couch, where she will never again curl up, waiting for me to scratch her eyeridges, humming in contentment.

I stare at the ceiling and wait for the sound of the curtain being brushed aside, my eyes open but unseeing. The darkness of the weyr matches the darkness of my mind; a vast emptiness inside that will never be filled. I feel like my soul has been torn in two and I will never be whole again. What they say is true – to live without a dragon, when the bond is broken by death, is to be half a person.


End file.
